Furuhata Ninzaburō

Television series
German title	Furuhata Ninzaburō
Original title	古畑任三郎
Country of production	Japan
original language	Japanese
Year (s)	1994-2006
Production ; company	Fuji Tv
length	45 minutes
Episodes	38 +4 special in 4 seasons
Broadcasting ; cycle	every Tuesday
genre	Crime , comedy
idea	Mitani Kōki
production	Shizuo Sekiguchi
music	Yusuke Honma
First broadcast	April 13, 1994 on Fuji Tv
occupation
	Masakazu Tamura as Ninzaburō Furuhata ; Masahiko Nishimura as Shintarō Imaizumi

Furuhata Ninzaburō ( Japanese 古畑任三郎 ) is a Japanese television series ( Dorama ), which ran from 1994 to 2006 on the Fuji Television channel . The script is by Kōki Mitani.

The series is assigned to the category "police crime" with the main roles Masakazu Tamura ( 田村正和 ) as inspector Ninzaburō Furuhata and his slightly idiotic subordinate Shintarō Imaizumi ( 今泉慎太郎 ), played by Masahiko Nishimura ( 西村雅彦 ). The series ran weekly (Seasons 1 and 2 on Wednesdays at 9 p.m., Season 3 on Tuesdays at 9 p.m., "Final" on three days in a row at 9 p.m.) and different guest actors played from episode to episode (as perpetrators, victims or in small supporting roles). These guests were well-known personalities, for example the boy band SMAP or the baseball star Ichirō Suzuki . Furuhata Ninzaburo is one of the most successful series on Japanese television.

Building the episodes

Most of the episodes of the series (with “Final” there are 42 episodes in total) are based on the pattern of the inverted detective story : At the beginning, the viewers see how the victim is killed and how the perpetrator tries to cover up the evidence and how the murder make it look like an accident. Only then does Furuhata appear, who is investigating as a homicide police officer. The murderer is mostly in the vicinity of the crime scene and tries to hinder the investigation. But he betrays himself to Furuhata with a suspicious action and is therefore no longer let out of his sight and is almost followed as if by a stalker . The appeal of the series lies in the logical conclusions of Furuhata. So he mostly knows who the killer is (like the audience). He tries to convict the killer with logical evidence and then bring him to a confession. And let the audience guess what the decisive evidence is. Furthermore, a typical element, which occurs in almost every episode, is that Furuhata always turns directly to the audience and gives them the facts of today's case again shortly before he convicts the perpetrator, illuminated by a light and darkening around him (Topic, murderer, tip on how he came up with the murderer, etc.), as already mentioned above, asks them to take part in the riddle and always from the audience with the sentence Furuhata Ninzaburō deshita ( 古畑任三郎でした , "That was Ninzaburō Furuhata") adopted into the commercial break. After this commercial break, the series continues as normal and the case is resolved.

The character of Ninzaburo Furuhata

Appearance and habits

He always wears black, as well as a black turtleneck.
He never wears a tie.
He often bends down and holds his hands in front of his chest like a mouse standing on its hind legs.
Although he bends down, he always looks up at the people instead of down, even though he is very tall for a Japanese.
He always speaks very elegantly and elegantly with his counterparts (with the exception of his subordinate Imaizumi).
He taps his temple with his index finger when he thinks.
He is always very careful when asking a question or accusing someone.
He always thinks out loud.

Traits

He also has many likes and dislikes that can make him appear either a charming person or a selfish person.

He likes ancient and dark music.
He rides a very unusual bike and chains it to almost anything that is close enough to the crime scene.
He likes trivia .
He watches too much TV.
He can only cook one menu : chawanmushi , meatloaf, and stuffed peppers .
He's afraid of guns even though he's a cop.
He is charming to the female perpetrators and treats them more carefully. He is also liked by women. Still, there was never a romance.
He's very picky about other people.
He mumbles and often speaks very quickly.
He likes desserts, especially ice cream with fruit in it, such as banana split .
He likes a certain type of bento : subuta .
He likes to read, especially Shōjo - Manga .
He is very meticulous about the appearance of his food, even what his hamburger looks like in a fast food shop. Still, he doesn't have good taste, as his dishes mostly come from junk food and things from the Kombini .

Shintaro Imaizumi

The character of Shintarō Imaizumi ( 今泉慎太郎 ), played by the actor Masahiko Nishimura, is said to represent the idiotic subordinate of Furuhata. Even if his childish behavior decreases over the course of the series and he tends to think and act like a "normal" person. For example, he often explains how the killer must have thought before he became a killer or he comes to the conclusion that the killer wanted to be caught. Or when Furuhata thinks out loud again, it is Imaizumi who kills the other possibilities that might come to mind for viewers trying to follow Furuhata's train of thought. Imaizumi is the only person Furuhata is not polite and reserved to. He's more likely to be bullied by Furuhata. In the 2nd and 3rd season Imaizumi gets its own mini-series, which always ran after the main series in the evening. In this miniseries he vented his displeasure with Furuhata and discussed with his friend Mantarō Kuwabara ( 桑原万太郎 ), played by Toshihito Itō ( 伊藤俊人 ), who works in the police laboratory. This miniseries was very well received by viewers and was very popular until the death of Toshihito Ito.

Other regularly appearing supporting actors

Otokichi Mukojima ( 向島音吉 ), played by Takayashi Kobayashi ( 小林隆 ), is a police officer who often greets Furuhata when he appears at the crime scene. The two of them attended the same school for a while and got to know each other there, this story is dealt with in the Special Furuhata Chūgakusei ( 古畑中学生 ). Mukojima also plays Suzuki Ichiro's brother in the second episode of "Final".
Mamoru Saionji ( 西園寺守 ), played by Masanori Ishii ( 石井正則 ), appears from the third season, is the second subordinate of Furuhata and the more logical and serious compared to the childish and naive Imaizumi.
Mantarō Kuwabara ( 桑原万太郎 ), played by Toshihito Itō ( 伊藤俊人 ), works in the police laboratory and is a friend of Imaizumi. He plays in the miniseries of his, which ran after the main series. He discussed and fooled with Imaizumi about his appearances and his role in the recent episode of the main series.
Hanada ( 花田 ), played by Norito Yashima ( 八嶋智人 ), is a character who shows up occasionally and hears the investigators' conversations, gives his opinion and always knows who the killer is, but has no evidence for his theses. He always disappears from the episode even after his statement. He also has a different job every time. He appeared as a waiter in a restaurant, as a waiter in a pub , as a waiter in a café, as a flight attendant, as a taxi driver and once as an employee of the Japanese embassy in Spain (in this special episode he portrayed Furuhata's henchman, without Imaizumi and Saionji).

Well-known guest actors

season 1

Sometimes the victim's name doesn't appear in the credits and that's why the name is sometimes missing

episode	killer	Victim	Special guest
1	Akina Nakamori	Takeshi Ikeda	Dog - "Ben"
2	Masaaki Sakai	Kitaro	no one
3	Yūko Kotegawa	Yūichi Haba	no one
4th	Tsurube Shofukutei	not mentioned	Tōru Minegishi
5	Yasosuke Bando	Akiji Kobayashi	no one
6th	Nana Kinomi	Shinsho Nakamaru	Shunji Fujimura
7th	Nenji Kobayashi	Hatsunori Hasegawa	no one
8th	Takeshi Kaga	Sabu Sawahara	Zen Kajiwara
9	Ken Ishiguro	not mentioned	no one
10	Kazuki Kosakai	Noriko Izumoto	Shinichiro Moriyama
11	Kaori Momoi	Saori Yagi	Michiko Ameku
12	Bunta Sugawara	Jun Nakahara	Zen Kajiwara

season 2

Sometimes the victim's name doesn't appear in the credits and that's why the name is sometimes missing

episode	killer	Victim	Special guest
14th	Sanma Akashiya	Naomi Akimoto	Akira Shiroi, Megumi Odaka
15th	Yasuko Sawaguchi	Kazuyuki Aijima	no one
16	Masao Kusakari	Yoneko Matsukane	Saiko Isshiki
17th	Takuya Kimura	no one	Akira Shiroi
18th	Haruko Kato	Kei Uzaki	Takashi Kobayashi
19th	Toshiaki Karasawa	Hikaru Ijuin	Yoshimasa Kondo
20th	Tojuro Sawamura	Itoshi Yumeji	no one
21st	Shingo Yamashiro	Takashi Ikeda	no one
22nd	Morio Kazama	Takehiko Ono	no one
23	Honami Suzuki	not mentioned	no one
24	Tomoko Yamaguchi	Minako Osanai	no one

season 3

Sometimes the victim's name doesn't appear in the credits and that's why the name is sometimes missing

episode	killer	Victim	Special guest
28	Somegoro Ichikawa	Morooka Moro	Yasukio Umeno
29	Hiroyuki Sanada	Minoru Sawatari	no one
30th	Tatsuo Matsumura	Michiko Ameku	Hachiro Oka
31	Mao Daichi	Tai Kageyama	Yuko Ito
32	Masahiko Tsugawa	Rieko Miura	Shigeki Hosokawa
33	Masachika Ichimura	Shion Machita	no one
34	Misako Tanaka	Fumio Kohinata	no one
35	Masaharu Fukuyama	Itsuji Itao	Naho Toda
36	Koji Tamaki	Chiharu Kawai	no one
37-38	Yosuke Eguchi	Masato Obara	no one

Special

Sometimes the victim's name doesn't appear in the credits and that's why the name is sometimes missing

episode	killer	Victim	Special guest
13	Takanori Jinnai	Hiromasa Taguchi	Maki Mizuno
26th	SMAP	Takashi Ukaji	Koki Mitani
27	Ken Ogata	Kurita Kanichi	no one
39	Koshiro Matsumoto	Mitsuhiro Oikawa	Masahiko Tsugawa

Final

Sometimes the victim's name doesn't appear in the credits and that's why the name is sometimes missing

episode	killer	Victim	Special guest
40	Koji Ishizaka	Tetsuya Chiba	Tatsuya Fujiwara
41	Ichirō Suzuki	Tomohiko Imai	Takashi Kobayashi
42	Nanako Matsushima	Nanako Matsushima	no one

Trivia

In a special with Ken Ogata it is mentioned that Furuhata's birthday is on the same day as Sherlock Holmes , Jeanne d'Arc (Johanna von Orléans) and Heinrich Schliemann . So his birthday is on January 6th, so that makes him a Capricorn . Nothing specific is mentioned about its age.

Web links

Furuhata Ninzaburō in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Official Website (Japanese)